Jason Manford's brutal four-word dig at Prince Andrew after awkward snub

Reminiscing about his long-cherished dream of hosting the Royal Variety Performance, comedian Jason Manford couldn't quite resist having a sly dig at Prince Andrew.

Jason explained to podcast host Vogue Williams that when he finally got his wish, it came under the worst possible circumstances. After appearing in the 2019 show, he was promised a shot at the hosting job the following year: "And of course, 2020 kicks in, pandemic. I still get to do it, but there's no audience."

The show was shot under strict lockdown conditions, with no audience present: "I just did it to a bank of 300 TVs. It was like doing a gig in front of Dixons' window."

With no audience, there was no laughter – the lifeblood of any stand-up comic. Jason says he was certain that the comedy set he had put together was funny.

"I had written this set that I knew was solid. It was all about lockdown."

He had honed his material in Zoom livestreams and car-park shows with audiences seated driven-movie style in their cars. For the drive-in shows, there was a curious form of interaction: "You were just on stage and they tuned their radios in [to the PA system frequency]. And if they thought it was funny, they'd beep their horns. It was so weird."

But for the 2020 Royal Variety Performance, Jason would't even be able to hear car horns: "I got to sort of mid afternoon and I thought, this is going to be so hard to do with no laughter.

"So I found the sound department guy and I said, can you play in some laughter? And he said, 'Yeah, but where?' I said, 'Don't worry, I'll tell you where'.

"I sat with him with my scripts and I literally went through them and said, 'that'll be a chuckle, that'll be a guffaw. Hey, that might get a round of applause'. Honestly, I did